As recently as April 20, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stated, “More than a quarter of the U.S. population has now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.”
Meanwhile new versions, including a double mutation of the coronavirus, have been playing a role in the world’s fastest developing surge of cases.
On April 22, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported the following news: “India has recorded the highest one-day tally of new Covid-19 cases anywhere in the world – and the country’s highest number of deaths over 24 hours.”
The BBC continued, “It (India) has close to 16 million confirmed cases, second only to the U.S.”
With the heavily populated nation’s demand for oxygen especially great, Britain, France, and Germany have already pledged help. Our country’s response followed next, replying that we would immediately make raw materials needed for India’s production of their Covid-19 vaccine. Covax, an initiative, backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and rich countries, was to have supplied free vaccines to 92 low- and mid-income countries. But the number of vaccines was recently slashed due to Covax’s main supplier, the Serum Institute of India, fighting its own country’s surge of viral cases. In addition, the Wall Street Journal commented that America had earlier restricted the export of the raw materials to India in an effort to speed up its own vaccine manufacturing.
Meanwhile, officials in Africa’s CDC and the WHO now suggest the possibility that “governments might consider giving priority to a first shot for as many people as possible, even if it means delaying second doses and despite a lack of clear data on how efficacy could drop without a booster.”
Tullio de Oliveira, a geneticist at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in South Africa, sadly gave his input: “The risk that the shot becomes less efficacious (effective) without a timely booster was especially high for countries battling variants.”
Poorer and underdeveloped nations are struggling to give the few vaccines they have received to their citizens for many reasons:
1. There is a lack of clarity and misinformation, along with negative messaging, coming out of Europe and the U.S. concerning the health of their vaccines. The restrictions in use of AstraZeneca/the University of Oxford and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines have contributed to this problem. Both vaccines have indicated rare severe blood clotting disorders (occurring in a very few individuals) after shots have been received. Nevertheless, Covax and the African Union have ordered big numbers of the recently legally reapproved J&J shots for the second half of the year.
2. Monetary contributions (with delayed availability) to the Covax division of the World Bank have been sorely underfunded.
3. Then there is a high illiteracy rate hindering the African populations’ ability to read their government’s vaccination advertisements.
4. Another contributing factor is the continent’s elderly population’s inability to secure their transportation to vaccination sites.
Let’s hope the huge gap between rich and poor nations of the world lessens in the near future!
